Numeracy Across the Curriculum (ITT/NQT Session)

On Monday 4th Nov 2013 I delivered a 'numeracy across the curriculum' session for my school's ITTs and NQTs. I was only given 30 minutes for this as the other half of the hour session was delivered by one of my English colleagues on 'Literacy across the curriculum'.

For the session, I used the following Prezi and included a number of ideas for getting numeracy into other subject's lessons. These ideas I will explain further here to support the ITTs and NQTs at my school, and also for anyone else who is interested in those ideas that I presented...I hope they are of use!


*Feel free to flick through the Prezi I created for the session. Throughout the presentation: I referenced the National Numeracy Organisation; briefly explained what numeracy was; gave my colleagues a question to attempt and used this to highlight the different ways students will go about solving the same problem; suggested ways in which you could/should be using numeracy in lessons; provided examples of what could be used to help (data from SIMS and a guide to the levels in Mathematics [from another colleague in my department]) and then presented 12 ideas, all of which I will explain further here (due to having to whizz through them in the session)!*

Idea #1 - Scrabble Tiles
I wrote a blog post on these previously which can be seen by going to --> http://goo.gl/rxCbrK

The Scrabble Tiles can be used in any subject by getting students to find/create key words for the lesson. The numeracy element comes in by getting students to find the sum of the numbers on their tiles. They could then even multiply this by a 'number of the day'. You could get students to estimate the highest total score for a word in your subject, would it differ in other subjects? Why? You could award extra points to students if they come up with a key word for the particular topic you are teaching; you could even award a percentage of their score, for example students could get 10% extra if the word is related to the lesson.

Idea #2 - Use the Dates

This idea is particular useful in subjects like History and English where you have historical dates to refer to or historical figures/people to mention. Get students to work out how many years it has been since certain dates, since the death of historical people. In Geography you could ask students to find the number of years since an event happened. You could get students to work out the age of people who have died by giving them their year of birth/death; you could go as far as working out how old they were in years, months, days, hours etc and could discuss conversions between time here. You could ask students how many days it is until events in the future too. For example, in RE, religious festivals such as Divali, Christmas, Eid, Easter etc. In Design and Technology (or Art) you can get students to create Gantt Charts for their projects and work out the number of days allocated to certain aspects of their projects (this idea came from @kutrahmoore).

Here's an example of a Gantt Chart. These could be used for any subject where an extended project is used - or for revision purposes in terms of creating a revision timetable!






Idea #3 - Pie Chart of the lesson

This could be used to great effect as a plenary activity. Get students to draw a pie chart to sum up the lesson. This activity could be differentiated for students by either keeping the timings simple (i.e. half the lesson I...(half the pie chart), a quarter of the lesson I...(a quarter of the pie chart), an eighth of the lesson I...(a quarter of the pie chart) etc) or getting students to use smaller time intervals, i.e. I spent 4 minutes reflecting on my progress (so a 24 degree slice would be needed to represent this). In order to do this the students will need to divide the 360 degrees in a circle up accordingly; 1 minute of the lesson would be represented by a 6 degree slice of the pie chart.

Idea #4 - Graphing Progress

Again, as a plenary activity in a lesson, or perhaps even kept at the start of every new topic in their exercise books, students can create a suitable graph/chart to 'graph' their progress throughout a topic. Here they can practise their skills of drawing suitable axis, with a consistent scale, and plotting points on their graph across a given time period. You can discuss here with students the criteria that they'll put on their 'progress' axis, whether it be a grade, level or other scale. You could also discuss the benefits of one graph/chart over another.

Idea #5 - Top Trumps

I love top trumps cards and have used them in my lessons to help engage lower ability students in their learning. I have a particular set of 'animal substitution top trumps' cards that I use regularly when teaching the topic. How these can be used in other subjects is by using key people/events and getting students to create their own top trumps cards and assign people/events certain values based on some categories you/they decide upon. For example, in English, you could take all characters from a particular novel (lets say Of Mice and Men) and then get students to rate them on their: likability, nobility, strength etc. Students then assign each character a value for these categories based on what they have learnt about them by reading the novel and then they'd play the game of top trumps in the traditional manner. To make this even more numeracy related you could get students to create sums/calculations instead of just having a single number. This way students would have to first do the sum before deciding whose card was the winner. In Science, this can be done with the Elements, perhaps taking proton number, mass number, number of electrons etc as the categories.

Here's an example of the 'Animal Substitution Top Trumps' I use...

With these top trump cards you give students values for a, b and c to substitute into the expressions on the cards. I change the values throughout the activity (to negatives, decimals, fractions etc) and then award 'rewards'/'house points' for those students holding my favourite cards (the chicken, pig and hedgehog - just in case you were wondering).

You can download this resource on the TES by clicking on --> http://goo.gl/HTzasQ









Idea #6 - Line Ups (range, median etc)

This can be used in a number of subjects where your students have to measure anything. For example, if they need to measure their heights for a given activity, or perhaps their heart rates in PE. Get them to line up in ascending order and then ask the class to work out the range, median and mode of their heights, heart rates, hand spans, weights etc. In History, you could take this idea further to make a timeline out of students for a certain event, say World War I or II, hand out to them key events, or get them to create these themselves, and then get them to line up in ascending order. Then you could calculate time frames between certain events. I can see this working well in PE too for the speeds at which they complete certain events/tasks.

Idea #7 - Venn Diagrams

Venn Diagrams can be used to compare any 2 (or more) things. In English, they can be used to compare characters in a book. In Science, they can be used to compare elements, In PE, they can be used to compare sporting events. In History, they can be used to compare historical events. In Geography, they could be used to compare natural disasters. In Music, they can be used to compare songs/bands/artists. In Food, they can be used to compare recipes. And so on... . Venn Diagrams can be used as either a starter activity or a plenary. They can also be used for revision purposes if asked to 'compare and contrast...'.

I have a resource on the TES I use when introducing Venn Diagrams (or HCF and LCM) that acts as a starter activity to get students to compare...Batman and Superman or...Shrek and Donkey. Download and adapt them here... http://goo.gl/Qh7NuQ

Idea #8 - Calculator Stories
This idea stems from a resource I found on the TES, you can download that resource here --> http://goo.gl/1AJ80j

Here it is too...

As you can see by the image to the left, this involves using a calculator to perform certain calculations to which the answers can be read by turning the calculator upside down in the 'old school' fashion where kids would type 5318008 to spell out 'boobies'!

You can therefore take any piece of text, omit any words you can spell by typing in numbers on a calculator and then turning it upside down, and then create a sum for students to answer to reveal the word in the text. You could get students to create their own or prepare them for them as a short starter activity. This would get them reading some key information for your lesson whilst practising their calculator skills. Check whether your students have their calculators on them at all times or whether you'll need to borrow some; they should all have them with them in our school (as long as they have Mathematics on the same day as your lesson)!?

Idea #9 - Cash Reward/Behaviour Tax
an idea I recently read in @TeacherToolkit's #100ideas book...

The idea is that, perhaps as part of a behaviour management strategy, at the start of a lesson you give all students a certain amount of 'money'. I have some fake £10 notes printed out that I use with ratio activities, or you could use money from board games, print your own etc. Then, throughout the lesson, perhaps when giving out reward points or warnings (in line with your school's behaviour policy), you then issue a reward cash value or 'tax' to the students. This tax could be 10%/25% of the money they have at that time in the lesson, or could just be a determined amount, say £20; a discussion here about which would be the greater amount would be lovely! The students at the end of the lesson with the most money could then 'trade' them in for a small prize or even receive an additional reward point.
I have used raffle tickets in the past in this manner (give them out for good behaviour/work, take them away for poor behaviour) and then draw a ticket at the end of the lesson and that person wins a prize. Here you can discuss the probability of them winning, based on the number of raffle tickets they have!

Idea #10 - Bananas!
I have no idea why this activity is called 'bananas' but I love it nonetheless...it is an idea I found through @TickTockMaths' '59 Starters' resource available on the TES. I blogged about it very recently at --> http://goo.gl/b9h5k1

Here's the idea...and this can be used in any subject...

You basically choose a few categories, related to your subject/lesson, and then pick any letter of the alphabet and get students to think of a key word for each category that begins with the chosen letter of the alphabet. How you get in some numeracy is that one of the categories could be 'a mathematical word' or 'a word to do with numeracy'. Get students to define their chosen word and say how/when they'd use it in their Mathematics lessons.

Idea #11 - Estimate the lesson

Estimation appears naturally in every day life. We estimate the amount of time it's going to take us to complete a journey, the amount of time we need to leave for certain tasks, the amount our shopping is going to amount to when we get to the check-out etc etc. For any subject there will be a number of occasions in your lessons where you can ask students to do some estimating. It could be the amount of time an activity is going to take them, a mark/score they believe they'll get on a test/assessment, the number of years since an event, the amount of an ingredient they will need for a recipe for a given number of people, an amount of liquid to use in an experiment, the length of wood to cut to make an object from etc etc. You could even, when asking students to estimate something related to your lesson, ask them to estimate the answer to a calculation i.e. estimate the answer to 34.98 + 23.1.

Idea #12 - Squares

I love squares. This is perhaps one of my favourite activities to do and there are so many variations of this activity that I probably need to write another blog post/book to explain them all...and even then they'll be other variations found too!

The activity 'squares' is based on a 6 by 6 dotted grid (or other square sized grid of your choosing) and players take it in turn to join two dots together, thus making 1 of the 4 sides of a square. The game continues with the other player taking their turn. Each time a square is created by having all 4 of its' sides complete the person wins that square.
How I make this more 'mathsy' is by having numbers in each 'square' prior to the start of each game, then, when a student wins a square they add that amount to their total. I've also done this when introducing algebra to get students to collect like terms (this would require letters and numbers to be placed in squares at the start).
This can be adapted for any subject by making a mega game of squares on the class whiteboard, or even better, on the IWB. Instead of writing numbers in the squares you can write questions for students to answer. So everytime they win a square they answer the question in the square they have won. The game is all about strategy and problem solving and is an enormous amount of fun!

Additionally, this can be done on a coordinate grid with a set of axes for students to call out coordinates before drawing their line (or their partners' chosen line). For example 'I want to join the points (2, 3) and (3,3). This variation could be used well in Geography when discussing maps and grid references.

Here's an extreme example of a 'squares' grid, write questions/numbers etc in the squares and each time a square is won the students answers that question or adds the number to their score!














So, that's all 12 ideas I presented (briefly) in my numeracy across the curriculum session. I hope it gives you a better idea of each and ultimately, how you can build numeracy into your lessons (if you were struggling to find a way to do so). There are loads of ways you can adapt these ideas to suit your subject/students/lesson etc I hope I've given enough examples for specific subjects? If you try anything out do let me know by commenting below or tweeting me at @mrprcollins.

Mathematics Loyalty Cards

I've been inspired this week due to a tweet from @MissKMcD about her 'Learning Skills Loyalty Card'. Here it is...

 















As with every great idea, is has been well and truly 'magpied' (I hope she doesn't mind)!

Therefore, please find below the new 'Mathematics Loyalty Card' that I'm planning on using with my Year 11 classes after half term...

 This is the front of the card :)











As you can see the card has 6 symbols on it, all of which will need to be 'achieved' if the student is to earn themselves a reward at the end of it. Now, as to what this reward will consist of I'm not yet sure. I've thought about a trip of some sort for those that manage to complete them. Some sort of 'prize' of the students choosing be it confectionery based or otherwise, but the main thing is that the reward at the end of the card needs to be something that is sought of by the individual student, otherwise I can't see the effort and attention being given to the tasks on the card.

This is how the back of the card looks - explaining each of the symbols on the front.










My thinking with each of the tasks is that they should be tasks that are more than achievable, but at the same time require a certain degree of effort on behalf of the student. The tasks will also help support the student in their revision leading up to their examinations. Now, our Y11s already have a 'passport' they have to get signed off by teachers in order to go their Y11 'prom'. So this is something I wanted to be almost separate from that to encourage them to do more independent study in Mathematics. Of course, if they attend after school sessions there is nothing to say that can't count towards their Y11 'passport' and their Mathematics Loyalty Card. The two can run alongside each other however!
I'm hoping that with the tasks on the card that it will instill a further sense of motivation in my students without making them go completely out of their way to try and achieve each task. For example, they will have weekly homework to do anyway, however, if they manage to get full marks on their homework they can stamp off that achievement on their Loyalty Card. They will get set mymaths tasks each fortnight to complete in their computer room lesson (as independent study), so all they will have to do is ensure they get 'green' results on these tasks (at least 5 of them). They all know when the after-school Mathematics sessions are - they just need to turn up to them. Some students are making good use of these, others (perhaps because they don't see the urgency yet, what with the examinations being in June) could do with attending these.

Therefore, I'm hoping to use the Loyalty Cards as an added incentive. The tasks that require students to produce a piece of work to go on display and show evidence of having revised are the only 2 that may require them to go out of their way and do 'extra'. The 'level up' task is something that should happen naturally if all other tasks are completed and attempted.

This idea is very much in its infancy. I will pass it by my colleagues next week and see what they say and then introduce the idea to my students. I'll obviously be tweeting this link out too and hope to get some responses from my Twitter followers as to the 'reward' at the end of the card, how best to use them etc.

When I do give them out I will use my 'Mr Collins likes this' stamp to stamp each symbol when completed. Here's one I made (stamped) earlier...

The stamp fits perfectly in each symbol (when printed A5 size)

Balloons and #poundlandpedagogy

As part of my experimentation with #poundlandpedagogy I had bought some balloons to use in class. Now, last year, for one of my formally observed lessons on my GTP, I used balloons to hide 'clues' in for the project-based lesson we were doing. This year I decided to use the balloons to pose questions to the class to try and answer throughout their lesson.

On each of 7 or 8 balloons I wrote a question, the session below involved quadratic sequences, and in the balloon (prior to blowing them up) I placed the answer to the question on a piece of paper. The idea was, throughout the lesson, where we looked at quadratic sequences, if a student felt they could answer the question on any of the balloons they would let themselves be known and I would come and check their workings. If and when they did this they would then be allowed to come and pop (very carefully) the balloon they had answered with the magic balloon popperer (a compass). Out would fall the answer to that balloon's question and they would then win a prize (also got as part of #poundlandpedagogy).

Here are the balloons...

 It wasn't long on entering the class that my students immediately asked what the balloons were for.

The questions they had to answer were those that were only possible having learnt what they did in the main part of the lesson (unless, like one of my students, they clearly had some prior knowledge of quadratic sequences...he popped a few). This meant that the attention I got from the students was even greater than usual, with them all craving the knowledge to be able to answer the balloon questions and pop them to reveal if they were correct. I only checked their answers initially to ensure I didn't have 7-8 popped balloons with no correct answers.

It is definitely something that I will look to do again. It creates a great amount of intrigue, motivation and desire in the students. It also brings a great competitive element to the lesson to see who can be first to answer each question/pop a balloon.

I also used the string I bought as part of #poundlandpedagogy to hang them up next to the board!

#poundlandpedagogy Eggs!

These have been on my 'wish list' ever since I read some tweets from other #poundlandpedagogy teachers on Twitter. I can specifically remember a tweet from @WallaceIsabella.

However, my recent trips to 'Pound World' (see http://poundworld.net) have been unsuccessful in finding these. So, in a desire to get some of these I searched on the web and found them just as cheap on Ebay and then on the following website http://www.littlecraftybugs.co.uk/index.asp.
They arrived this week!

I got 72 of them so I can use different sets for different classes...

After snipping the bit of plastic holding each half together, and filing the sharp bits off they are now ready to use in class tomorrow. Here's what I plan on doing with them...









As a starter for my bottom set year 10 class I have cut up sets of 4 different numbers and put these in each of 12 eggs (1 for each student + a few spare). At the start of the lesson I will get students to pick an egg from a box and then get them to do the following with their 4 numbers:

1) using any mathematical operation, and each of the numbers once only, make the number 24
2) arrange the numbers to make the largest number possible
3) arrange the 4 numbers in any way you like and then write that number in words
4) find the largest sum you can from adding 2 of the numbers to the other 2 numbers (this was a question that they got wrong in their recent foundation mock examination)

So, for the number in the picture on the left...

1) (8-4)x(4+2)
2) 8442
3) 4842 = four thousand eight hundred and forty two
4) 84 + 42 = 126 or 82 + 44 = 126












Then, for my second set year 10s, who have been doing trigonometry the past few lessons, they have a trig question each in their eggs where they will have to find a missing length of a right-angled triangle. After they have found their own missing length I will get them to peer assess with their partner to check their partners work and have theirs checked before we then go onto looking at finding a missing angle!

 Pick an egg...any egg

10 ticks trigonometry w/sheet cut up into individual questions (1 in each egg).
I'll also be putting the 4 numbers in the eggs too for them to try and make the number 24 as with the year 10 class above. I may also get them to multiply 2 2-digit numbers from their 4 too.







I'm looking forward to seeing the reaction of the students tomorrow when they are presented with these at the start of the lesson.

I have lots of other ideas as to how I can use these in class too which I'll post about as and when I use them in class!

Circle Theorems & Hula Hoops!!

Inspired by @MrReddyMaths' guest blog post by @adrianjohnst on his blog my Y10 class have been creating Circle Theorems using Hula Hoops bought at 'Pound World' today!!

To see Adrian's blog post click http://mrreddy.com/blog/2012/12/guest-blog-circle-theorems-and-hula-hoops/

To visit the 'Pound World' website go to http://poundworld.net/. This lesson/blog post is part of my experimentation with #poundlandpedagogy.

This was our 1st lesson back after the Easter holidays and with a few personnel changes to the set due to recent mock results I felt it would be a good idea to revise over a few topics this week to get the class back into the swing of things and to provide links to the topics in the Unit 2 paper that we still need to cover. Another reason for looking at Circle Theorems again is because I didn't feel the class learnt enough when we covered them the first time round, the lesson, for whatever reason, didn't seem to sink in and so we needed to do more work here - the question/s that have come up in mock papers the class have done weren't fantastically well answered, as a whole group.

So, I started the lesson by using my Mathematics 4 pics 1 word Circle Theorems resource - see my previous blog post http://mrcollinsmaths.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/mathematics-4-pics-1-word-circle.html (there's a link in this post to my resource on the TES available for download). I then, using the words in the starter activity went over the circle theorems on the board. I also had, on the tables prior to the class coming in, a sheet of QR Codes that linked to my Circle Theorem videos on my YouTube Channel (mrcollinsmaths). The idea then was for the class to use the videos and the notes I had written on the board to recreate one of the Circle Theorems. I asked groups to volunteer for a particular circle theorem at this point and this created a bit of competition with certain groups wanting to do certain Theorems over others. Once the groups had their circle theorems assigned I showed them (in the style of 'Blue Peter') one I had made early to model what it was I was expecting. Having thought about it now, I should have shown them Mr Reddy's blog post (darn hindsight)!

So, here's one I made earlier...

I used a few of my other purchases at 'Pound World' including the 'Memo Cube' 'post-its' (however these aren't sticky) and the masking tape to secure the rods.

The rods I got from our awesome D&T department. I luckily caught one of the NQT teachers in the car park and told him what I was planning to do - we then went to the D&T workshops and sliced up some wooden rods they had lying around so I could use these as the tangents, chords, radii, diameters etc! These were a great help and it pays to know all the departments in your school - you never know when you're going to need to call on them for help!

This 'model' then gave the class the basis of what I was looking for. After a short health and safety warning about splinters I gave the groups their hula hoop, wooden rods and sellotape/masking tape etc. At this point I had quite a few of our faculty in the room as I had invited them in if they were free to see what we were doing (and give me a hand). A few of them went and found us some extra sellotape as the masking tape wasn't great for holding the parts in place. Nonetheless, look what the class created...

 Angles drawn from the same point

 Angles drawn from the same chord

Angle in a semi-circle (angle at the circumference is half the angle at the centre)

 Cyclic Quadrilateral (opposite angles = 180 degrees)

Angle at the circumference is half the angle at the centre











After the class had been given 15-20 minutes to complete their circle theorem hula hoops I asked one representative from each group to explain to the rest of the class what circle theorem they had done, explain the relative parts of each etc. I then collected them all in and handed out to the class a set of circle theorem past paper questions from the 'bland.in' website. The class then used my YouTube video and all the Theorems (now on the floor of the wall at the front of the class) to answer the questions. I was particularly impressed at this point that some of the class had got our previous lessons notes out of their exercise books to refer to too!

Here's all of them at the front of the class & the QR Codes sheet and questions I gave the class...

 All of them, at the front as a reference - I just need to 'hang'/ put these up on one of the walls in the room for future use!

Here's the QR Code sheet I made the class. The centre QR Code links to the playlist on my YouTube Channel with all the explanations and some past paper question solutions. The 6 QR Codes round the centre one link to a specific theorem.







I (and I hope the class) really enjoyed this lesson. I feel they were much more secure with their knowledge of circle theorems at the end of the lesson having gone over the answers to the questions in the 'plenary'.
I know need some more Hula Hoops to do a session on Venn Diagrams (as suggested by a few of my Twitter followers following my #poundlandpedagogy tweets)!

#poundlandpedagogy

I have recently been reading lots of tweets with the hashtag #poundlandpedagogy. The phenomenon seems to have been started my @WallaceIsabella and there are loads of teachers out there now contributing to the discussion.

Isabella's original work on #poundlandpedagogy can be read in this article http://osiriseducational.co.uk/osirisblog/poundstore-pedagogy-inspiration-in-the-aisles

#poundlandpedagogy is where teachers use the items/objects cheaply available in stores like 'Poundland' and 'Pound World' etc in their classrooms to improve teaching and learning. Coming up with innovative ways to use the 'everyday' items you find in these stores.

There are already some brilliant ideas out there as to how teachers are using these items in their classrooms. Some fantastic examples are:

(@ASTsupportAAli) Bulmershe School Toolkit Blog - http://bulmershetoolkit.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/cheap-shops-brilliant-lessons.html#!/2013/03/cheap-shops-brilliant-lessons.html

Dave Cookson's (@seatonburnDCO) blog where he regularly updates what he is using in his classroom under  the 'Technique a Week' heading - http://seatonburndco.wordpress.com/technique-a-week/

& most recently (inspired by the above) Mandy Lawson's (@seatonburnALA) new blog where she outlines how she plans to use #poundlandpedagogy in her classroom after the Easter break - http://seatonburnala.blogspot.co.uk/#!/2013/03/inspired-by-poundland-pedagogy-chat-on.html

There are plenty of other teachers contributing to and sharing their #poundlandpedagogy and they can be found by following the #poundlandpedagogy (click on this link) on Twitter! Some of my favourites so far include @fimturner's haul, & @ldufty's store eggs and reusable keyboard keys!

So, having been inspired and excited by the prospect of getting some cheap products and thinking of ways I can use these in my classroom I ventured into town today...

I went to 'Pound World' as it was the 1st one I came by, in preparation I also looked at the 'Poundland' website to see what sorts of items I would be likely to come across. You can check out both of their sites at http://poundworld.net/ and http://www.poundland.co.uk/.

I was amazed at how many things there are in these shops that you can use. The whole time I was in the shop my mind was going mental trying to think of ways to incorporate each item into my lesson. I went down each and every aisle searching for bargains to use. I eventually dragged myself away from the store with the following items to get me started this half of term...

 'Memo Cube' aka 'Post-it' notes! I already use these a lot in my lessons using my 'Tweets Plenary'. I also get my form group to write their examples using our school's 'Word of the Week' on these. I have got some more ideas to use these involving a rope ladder, but I'll post on that another time!

 Next up...balls of string. Being a Mathematics teacher these naturally come into play when looking at circumferences of circles, investigating and discovering Pi and looking at length etc. I have also used these this year for a 'probability washing line' and most recently to try and keep my garden fence from falling over! I plan to use these in some sort of 'washing line' display and, again, will post on this in due course.

 A great find here - masking tape! I get regular e-mails from Pivotal Education's Ellie suggesting ideas for 'Active Maths' lessons. One of these suggestions was to create a 'magic square' grid on your classroom floor, give students the numbers to form the magic square and then get them to arrange themselves in the grid so that all the rows, columns and diagonals sum to the same number! This is what I'll do with this initially and I'll post when it's done!

Balloons! I love using these in lessons and used them in one of my termly assessments last year on my GTP. I put a little piece of paper in each of about 12 balloons, 4 lots of 3 differently coloured balloons (differentiated). In a certain coloured balloon would therefore be a 'clue/hint' for the lesson. The students were then encouraged to, if needed, come to the front and [very safely] pop the balloon they required to get that clue for the lesson. i haven't used this yet this year and so these will come in handy to revive this strategy I have used previously...blog post to follow!

Lastly, and my favourite, most awesome, find of the day goes to...6 hula hoops (each costing £1)! Now, I have been on the look out for these since I read Bruno Reddy's (@MrReddymaths) blog post on using hula hoops to help his students revise the circle theorems. This is exactly what I intend to do with these and my Y10 class. I will, perhaps, use the string here too. There will be an epic blog post to follow this lesson, when it is done - watch this space!

 

As you can tell from the above, I intend to write an individual post, including pics, of how I have incorporated each of my purchases into my lessons and what effect they had on the learning of my students. I will try to do one of these posts a week from now until the half-term week and then hopefully go shopping again over half-term (if not before) to hunt around for some more ideas. I'm already on the hunt for some eggs and recycled keyboards in order to try out @ldufty's idea!

 

More to come... follow the #poundlandpedagogy for more ideas that are already in action!

GCSE Revision Sessions - Passport to a [insert grade]!

I have recently been completing a series of documents for a new and exciting project the TES Maths Panel have been working on...watch this space for more information!

Whilst I have been doing this project, which has involved me searching through the resources on the TES I have come across a bloody brilliant idea... mrslack_maths' Passport to...

You can download the resource here.

I believe this resource would be great for revision sessions and this is exactly what I've been in the process of planning for next Tuesday with Y11. So, taking inspiration from Mr Slack Maths I have created my own version of the passport resource for the students I will be taking for the revision session. My revision session is to be aimed at those students that have either already gained a C Grade or are aiming for a B grade 1st time round. So, I have created a 'Passport to a B Grade +' resource, very much like Mr Slack Maths' that I will be giving to each of the students in my session.

Here's how the front/back cover look...

 















and here's how the centre of the passport looks...

I intend on printing the two pages front and back to make the passports.

As you can see, I have taken the B grade topics from the Edexcel 2MB01 Unit 3 spec. This is because some of the students will be sitting this paper and others will be sitting the Linear spec, both of which will cover these topics. There's only so much I'll be able to cover in the session and so I've opted for those topics that I feel students will be likely to come up against/will grasp fairly quickly. There will be some students that having scrapped a C grade earlier in the year will struggle with some of these topics, I'm thinking particularly the trigonometry/circle theorems questions.

What I have also done is put a QR Code next to each 'objective'. These link to my mrcollinsmaths YouTube Channel videos I have created today, specifically for the session. All of these videos can be viewed in one playlist entitled 'aiming for a B grade and beyond'. There are some that I haven't done yet and I'm in two minds as to whether I will, or whether, for those topics, I cover them in the revision session; I can see a few students potentially suggesting that the work has been done for them and so why be there at all - they'll take the passport, and my hard work, and do it at home!?
So, for some of the topics they'll need to be there for the session to be taught it. Of course, I'll be reinforcing and complimenting the videos too in the session - by no means do I believe the kids will watch the videos and therefore be 100% able to do those questions!

Like Mr Slack Maths suggests in his resource on the TES, I will be stamping the students' passports as they 'complete' certain 'objectives'. This will be by means of them completing some past paper questions that I will print off for them using the following website... http://www.bland.in/GCSE%20Maths/ (thanks to Will Emeny (@Maths_Master) for originally blogging/tweeting about this site)
This website groups past exam questions into a selection of topics and will provide the practice the students will need.

Remember my stamp from my http://mrcollinsreflectivejournal.blogspot.com blog last year? It's still going strong! (available from http://www.primaryteaching.co.uk/)
Each objective will be 'stamped' once students have successfully answered a sufficient amount of questions on the topic.

Rewards can then be given, either each time they get a stamp, or for the student/s that manage to get the most amount of stamps?!







I may run the session (2 hours in the morning, 2 hours in the afternoon) using the passport and get students to work through 'a page at a time'. So, they'd focus on the first page's 4 objectives first, pick one they need practise on or choose one to start with, watch the video or come to the front where I'll go through the topic and then they have the questions to answer. In this way I'll be able to focus on a few topics at a time rather than giving them free reign of any of the topics.

I will, of course, post a follow up to this post once I have done my session to let you know (those that are interested) of how it all went!

THANKS ONCE AGAIN TO 'mrslack_maths' FOR HIS EXCELLENT IDEA!

If you're running a revision session this week/in the near future it'd be great to find out what you've done in your sessions...let me know, comment below or tweet me @mrprcollins.

An 'apeeling' lesson from @Maths_Master

Last week I saw a tweet from @Maths_Master (Will Emeny) linking to an 'apeeling' lesson on his 'greatmathsteachingideas' website. As soon as I saw it I was waiting for a reason to do this lesson with my Y10 class - I loved the idea!

It can be seen here... http://www.greatmathsteachingideas.com/2012/11/28/surface-area-of-spheres-an-apeeling-lesson/

Luckily, on Thursday, it was Pi Day. Naturally I started my lesson on Thursday by showing my class my Pi Day '4 pics 1 word' resource I had created especially for that day. My resource can be downloaded from the TES here. This lead to a discussion as to what Pi was and then gave me a natural link into looking at finding the area and circumference of circles and then looking at areas of sectors and lengths of arcs. Near to the end of the lesson I had given some of the students who were ready to move on some volume of cylinder questions to attempt. Having looked over the METHODS of Mathematics SoW for the Unit 2 topics I remembered that the volumes of cones, cylinders and spheres were near to the end of this and would be needed to be taught too. So, rather than waiting til the end of the SoW to cover this I decided to do this in our next lesson, building on our work involving Pi.

The start of our next lesson began with the class working out the volume of cylinders picking up from where we left off. I had a picture up at the start of the lesson too, to hint at what we would be doing for the bulk of the lesson, here was the pic I used (you've probably seen this before, I was reminded of it at our INSET session last Fri, which was delivered by @vicgoddard!)

Here's where @Maths_Master's brilliant lesson idea came into play. I went through the answers to the volume of cylinder questions and then referred the class to the formula sheets in their mock papers they had just completed. I highlighted on here the volume of a prism and then the formulae for the volume of a sphere and cone (I purposely, at this point, left out the curved surface area formulae out). I gave the class 3 questions of each to apply the formulae too and then checked, as they worked they were able to use their calculators correctly. After the answers were displayed and learning checked I got out the oranges I had rushed to Tesco to get the previous evening!

I then explained to the class what I wanted them to do in their pairs - and followed the details as per @Maths_Master's idea linked above. The class then, in pairs (after I had read the riot in terms of ensuring I wasn't going to find orange peel in all crevices in my room later that day) starting to draw around their orange and then peel their orange and sculpt the pieces into the circles they had created. This then proved the curved surface area of the sphere being 4 x Pi x r x r. Here's some of the class' work as they were doing it...

Students started by filling, as completely as they could, one of the drawn circles with the orange peel

 They then continued to fill in as many of the other circles that they could. They drew as many circles as they could on their pieces of paper.

 Eventually, students found that the orange peel fitted 4 of their circles. So 4 x the area of one of the circles = 4 x Pi x r x r. This works as the radius of the circles is (practically) the same as the radius of the sphere (orange).

One of my students managed to peel the orange in one go - this I found rather impressive!











The class then worked out the curved surface area of the spheres they were asked to work out the volumes for earlier in the lesson - this formed the plenary for our lesson.

Note to self...make sure you remember some kitchen towel next time to clear up the small amount of juice that will end up on the tables, oh...and for those kids that will complain that their hands are 'sticky'.

Whole Class Stem & Leaf Diagrams

On Friday I was teaching stem and leaf diagrams to a year 10 class.

Prior to the lesson, when thinking about how I would teach them the topic, I was looking over the class' details and then something dawned on me...the seating layout looked like a back-to-back stem and leaf diagram.
The room was laid out with 4 rows of 4 tables, 2 either side of a central walkway. This then got me thinking that I could make a stem and leaf diagram out of the class themselves, with the students being the leaves and the stem being the gap between the desks in the centre of the room. However, as I didn't know how much the class had done on stem and leaf diagrams I couldn't be sure that we'd naturally get to back-to-back stem and leaf diagrams in that lesson. So, as a back up I decided I could still create a single stem and leaf diagram using the windows on one side of the room to be the stems and then the rows of desks being the leaves.

So, in order to prepare for this, I created a set of laminated numbers for each of the students. Having discussed the idea with my colleagues one of them suggested having the actual number on one side of the laminate and then the leaf part of that number on the other. This was a great addition as it then allowed the students to not only recognise what their actual number was, but also how to relate the leaf part of their number to the number itself. So, having created the number/leaf laminates I then just simply wrote each stem (0-4) onto a piece of paper and blutacked these to the windows in line with the 4 rows of desks.
I gave out the laminated numbers/leaves to the students randomly and then asked them to create the ordered stem and leaf diagram. I had the question on the IWB too for the students to refer to. The numbers all represented the ages of members of a swimming club.

What happened was great, all of the students were organising themselves (and each other) into the relevant row (stem) and then ordering themselves (the leaves). After the diagram was complete I then, to get a better view of things, stood on one of the tables and then asked the class questions about the stem and leaf. This included calculating the median, mode and range. When it got to the median I decided to take away students 1 by 1, highest and lowest until there were only 2 students left in the middle of the diagram; I linked this to when we cross off from a list of ordered numbers until you get to the middle number/s. We then discussed what the median would be of the two numbers left over; there were some misconceptions here that we were then able to cover.

The activity worked really well and I will do a similar thing in the future when we look at back-to-back stem and leaf diagrams.

Mr Collins Table Sheets...MATCH!!

 

2 years ago, whilst working as a cover supervisor and waiting to start my GTP in Mathematics I was doing a lot of private tutoring. I was doing this private tuition to a) keep my subject knowledge fresh and keep up-to-date with examination specs etc and b) to earn a bit of extra money to make up my salary.

Whilst I was tutoring I saw the need to create some revision resources for my tutees and indeed the Year 11s at the school where I was covering lessons. So, over the course of a couple of months I created my Mr Collins Table Sheets. Each of the sheets took me about 20-30 mins to create and I made 34 in total (enough for a whole class set). I blogged initially about the sheets last year at http://mrcollinsreflectivejournal.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/mr-collins-table-sheets.html and have uploaded all of them to the TES where they have been put into their own collection. You can download all of the sheets here. The sheets have received a bit of a mixed response on the TES due to some users not liking that they are hand-written and quite packed full of information. However, regardless I love them and recently got them out at my new school to try something new with them with my set 1 year 9 class and my set 2 year 10 class.

I gave the sheets to my set 1 year 9 class after we had our yearly parents' consultation evening. At the evening I spoke to the parents of all 32 of my year 9 students about their progress in Mathematics and told them about their GCSE years briefly having had the year 9 options evening the week before; many parents wanted to know about the 'additional Mathematics' GCSE that our top set students will be doing.

So, in order to give the class an insight into the types of questions they'd be seeing over the next few years I decided to, for one lesson, get out the Table Sheets.

 

How I did the lesson was as follows:

I gave out to each student one of the sheets and briefly explained the layout of the sheets and how they work in terms of some sheets having useful information/formulae that another person may need to answer a question on their sheet. I gave the class half of our lesson to then, working together, try to answer as many of the 10 questions on their sheets. They were allowed to consult with others if there was a question they weren't sure about or if there was someone else in the room that had something  on their sheet that they could use to help answer their question. Naturally some of the questions were too difficult for them as there were topics on the sheets they'd never seen before - this just added to their intrigue and I had a whole host of questions as to what was a reciprocal, what's the sine rule, how do I work out the volume of a cone etc.
After the initial part of the lesson I then bought out my newly created Mr Collins Table Sheets MATCH resource...

When creating the sheets I always had in mind the ability to use them as a sort of match between the two teams on the sheets: Raymond's Rovers and Collins City. On each sheet I have put a team shirt of one of the teams and these are numbered from 1-16. So, in order for me to run this team activity I have created a new IWB resource where we can have the 'match' between the two teams.

The resource can be found on the TES at: http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/Football-IWB-Match-Activity-6319210/

Here is a print screen of the match screen...

 This is the main screen where you can see the interactive score and the starting 11 team shirts

 On this screen you can see the substitutes and the match ball, which is set as an infinite cloner allowing me to move the ball around the screen and attach a football image to each person that scores a goal

In order to make the resource usable for other subjects and for those that don't want to use the Table Sheets I have set up a slide where you can print out a team shirt to randomly give out to students (to determine which player they are and what team they are on).




How the match worked was as follows...

I started the MATCH by using my class' random name generator to select a student to have possession of the ball (oh yeah - you may need an inflatable football to throw around the room - they loved this aspect of it). If that student was in the starting 11 I would then drag the ball from the bottom left of the screen to that player's position. If they were a sub I'd ask them what player that wanted to sub off so they were on the pitch. Then they had the option to either pass the ball to another player on their team, or to shoot. If they passed then that player would then have the same option to pass or shoot, or even sub themselves off for another player! If they chose to shoot they would then choose one of the questions on their table sheet to answer (or, as I did with other classes choose one of the questions we had answered in class). If they got the question correct their shot would have been made and the goalkeeper from the other team would have to answer a similarly difficult question to save the shot. At this point I'd mention that I had purposefully given the #1 shirts to the G&T students in the class. If the goalkeeper got their question correct and it was the same difficulty the player would score, getting the advantage. If they answered a harder question however they would have saved the shot.
This worked well with goals being scored if both answered their questions correctly, however some students were saying their was no point in the keeper answering them as they'd score anyway - at this point I stressed that it was more about me seeing that both students had answered the questions correctly than it was about the scoring/not scoring -plus there was plenty of time for teams to equalise etc.
I then would go to the relevant part of the scoreboard and add a goal on. The great thing about the scoreboard is that you can add and deduct goals from a team's score and so it also becomes (if needed) a behaviour management tool as you can take goals off a team for poor behaviour.
The match then progressed by using the random name generator to chose the next student to gain possession after the goal had been scored. It it was saved the keeper just passed the ball to a member of their team, giving them possession.

The amount of fun that was had using this activity, with the inflatable ball being passed around the room, students decided as a team who should 'shoot' to give them the best chance of scoring and therefore bringing certain students off the bench or sharing formulae etc to enable others to answer their harder questions (the questions from 1-10 increase in difficulty). There are tweaks needed I feel in terms of the goal scoring/saving. But nonetheless it allows me to check students understanding whilst having an immense amount of fun.

Here's how my room looked prior to one of the lessons I used the sheets in...the amout of intrigue this created was amazing...

 

I have also used this activity as a plenary task WITHOUT using the sheets. Instead of the sheets I use the questions I give my students in the lesson as those that they answer when 'shooting'. When two students have answered the same question that question is then taken out of the game and students have to chose another question to answer when 'shooting'. The advantage this has had is that now students are used to the format (having done the activity in other lessons) they are motivated to answer as many questions as they can in the question answering section of the lesson as they know they'll need these for the match!

I'd love to hear any thoughts on how you think the activity would be bettered or if you'd like any further information as to how I run this in class!
I plan on doing a running league table pitting Raymond's Rovers against Collins City to introduce even more competition to the activity.

Rule Book

Last week I did a bit of private tutoring with one of my tutees I haven't seen in a while. She's currently revising for her Mathematics GCSE exam that she has in March (well the 1st paper is 28th February)! After we had gone over lower and upper bounds, direct and indirect proportion, bearings and a few other things she showed me the 'rule book' that she had been keeping over the past month or so to revise more effectively.
Now, as I used to work in the school in which my tutee is studying I know of one of the Mathematics teachers there that uses these 'rule books' with all of his classes in KS4 as an effective way of them keeping revision notes and examples of questions. Each week he'd check these books to see that the students were using these. However, my tutee doesn't have this teacher for Mathematics and so I was massively impressed that she had decided to do one off her own back.

In the book she had a separate page for each topic/different type of question, all pages were numbered and at the back of her 'rule book' she had an index to easily find certain topics to revise from. I thought this was brilliant and I am now wondering as to how I could introduce this in class and whether or not students would use it as well as she is? Would it be something that I'd have to check on a weekly basis? Would these checks and the compulsory nature of me insisting the students kept these books then have a negative affect on them wanting to keep them? Should they be something that the students themselves would have to WANT to be keeping rather than something I would be telling them to do? All questions I'd have to consider and I may well contact my previous colleague to see how best he uses them with his classes?!

Here's my tutees' rule book...(I don't know who Sam is - maybe he appears throughout the book to explain concepts etc?)

 Here's some of the notes she's made inside - looks like Pythagoras' Theorem in 3D!

Here's the index pages - notice how she's almost made 100 pages already!!












The only thing I asked her was if anybody had checked the notes/examples she had written in her book. She said that they hadn't so far as it was just something she had been keeping to help her revise! I thought that this may need to be done so that she was certain that everything in there was accurate (I'm sure it would have been). If introduced in class these would, at some point, need marking or at least looking over by me. I could see these being used in conjunction with a class exercise book. The 'rule book' would be used for students to take down notes at the start of the lesson - just one example, key formulae/definitions etc, and then exercise books could be used for practise questions, workings out, homeworks etc. Mark the homeworks as they are given and completed and then mark the 'rule books' once a week/fortnight?

I'd be interested to hear if any Mathematics teachers are using anything similar in class and how best they have been implemented? Do the students take to these well? Do they use them proactively? Tweet me @mrprcollins or reply below!

Mathematical Advent Calendar

December is here, which means it's advent calendar time across the country! So, in order to embrace the Christmassy nature of the month I have decided to get my Year 7 class to create their own 'Mathematical Advent Calender'.

I have created a blank advent calendar template that I will hand out to my class and then I'll get them to cut out the 'doors' on the template that I have pre-cut round some of the edges. They will then stick this template sheet onto a blank piece of A4 paper.
After the setting up of the calendar is done the class will be challenged to come up with as many mathematical problems, equations, calculations, sums etc to which the answers are the numbers between 1-25. The answers to their problems will then decide which door is numbered with which of the numbers between 1-25 and therefore what doors get opened on each day of the month, leading up to Christmas.
After the students have then written mathematical problems for each of the doors they will be given the task of filling in the inside of each door with a joke, fact, picture, cartoon, rhyme, etc  that will be revealed on each day when the doors are opened.

I have created an example to show the class where all the mathematical facts are what we have been covering so far in class this year. I will, throughout the lesson, give the students guidance as to what types of mathematical facts they can use to create the answers (numbers 1-25); we have been studying BIDMAS, sequences, expressions, substitution, area, perimeter.

*in the style of Blue Peter*...here's one I prepared earlier...

I have uploaded the template onto my TES resources page, this can be seen here - http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/Mathematical-Advent-Calendar-Template-6305408/ I printed out the template sheets and then used a scalpel and cutting mat to cut out the horizontal lines of each door. This means all the students will need to do is cut the vertical line between them (right hand of each door) and then stick the sheet to another piece of A4.
Of course I could have got the students to do this but didn't particularly fancy having to borrow the scalpels from DT and allowing the kids to do this themselves!

Let me know what you think! I'm planning on putting these up on the class display after they've been finished off. My year 7s are the only one of my classes that don't currently have a display up in my room!

Pointless Mathematics (Revisited and Revived!)

Back in February, whilst still on my GTP, I thought about and then set about creating my very own version of Pointless...Pointless Mathematics.

I blogged about this here on my previous 'reflective journal' blog.

Well, having just been on the TES doing my weekly look about for resources/ideas for my lessons I have discovered that the up and coming resource of the week is centred around my idea. You can see the resource of the week on the TES Mathematics pages here. Now, the only thing is...this isn't my resource, but a far better revived version of it.

When putting together my version I found there were a few 'snags' with the resource and it didn't work as great as I thought it would in class. Well, now Richard Tock @TickTockMaths has created a much better version where the resource now works much more like my intended version.

The resource takes the data I collected via Twitter (thanks again to everyone who took the surveys) and builds it into a multiple choice resource whereby the students, in teams, have to come up with the most 'pointless' answer. They also have to explain their answer in order to win that round.

I am very much looking forward to trying this resource out nearer the end of term and am glad that my idea has inspired others to use the resource and essentially make it better!

Thanks to Craig for mentioning my original idea in the resource of the week video and to Richard for improving on the idea and making my idea usable in class!

Icing Biscuits all in order to teach Ratios

When trying to approach the topic of Ratio with my lower ability Year 8 sets I decided to mix things up a bit.

I had seen on the TES Start of Term resources that there was an idea to decorate biscuits in different ratios and so thought this could be ideal in engaging my year 8s with the topic. So,I got myself some Rich Tea biscuits, Icing Sugar and Smarties.

In the lesson I introduced the topic and asked my LSA to start mixing the icing sugar for me. When this was done I handed out the biscuits to the students (2 each) and told them that they would be given a random selection of smarties and that they'd have to decorate their biscuits with smarties in certain ratios. I gave them the freedom to choose what smarties they put on what biscuits, but they had to tell me the ratio they had used and write this on their kitchen towel they put their iced biscuits on (I didn't want a load of mess in my new room)!

Here are some of the results...

 



They, of course, also enjoyed devouring the biscuits afterwards!